


The Antidote to Civilization

by Maggie Hall (charlottechill)



Category: Wiseguy
Genre: Closeted Character, Early Work, FBI agents, Italian Character(s), M/M, Male Slash, Slash, Undercover, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 16:14:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20138302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottechill/pseuds/Maggie%20Hall
Summary: Set in the early 1990s, Vinnie takes Frank on a vacation to loosen him up. It doesn't work. (Slightly edited for typos and too many words.)





	The Antidote to Civilization

**Author's Note:**

> Originally appeared in McPikus Interruptus 3, published in 1994.

“You know, I never imagined that I’d spend my vacation lounging around in the sun letting somebody else take care a’ me. Not in someplace like this.” Frank’s voice was tight, a little nervous.

Vinnie sighed, feeling his breath trapped hot and humid between his mouth and the towel over his face. “C’mon, Frank, we work ourselves to death on the job, we deserve a chance ta relax once in a while.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” Nervous and irritated.

“Geez,” he muttered, dragging the towel off his face. He’d never get any sleep this way. Turning to glare at the lounge chair next to him and Frank’s tight, shadowed back, he snapped, “What.”

Frank looked over his shoulder, and Vinnie blinked hard, trying and failing to discern features in a face that the bright background of tropical sky forced into shadow. Squinting, Vinnie still couldn’t make out the frown he was sure Frank was wearing. “It’s weird, Vinnie.”

“What’s weird?” Like he had to ask. It was a little weird even to him, and he’d just come out of an undercover op; he was used to weird. Frank wasn’t, hadn’t been for years. It was getting clearer and clearer what a bad idea this might have been.

Not even a twitch. “What. Gee, I dunno, Vince. Maybe it’s just all those animals in heat on the beach out there.”

Vinnie closed his eyes against the glare. “Long as it ain’t huntin’ season, Frank, what’re you worried about?” He reached for his towel, but a hand caught his wrist.

“Will you look at what you’ve gotten me into?”

Vinnie sighed, sat up in the chair, and followed Frank’s waving hand. It covered the most beautiful beach Vinnie had ever laid eyes on, guys walking and flirting and sunning and generally pampering the shit out of themselves, and a four star hotel resort complex that had cost him more than twenty-five hundred dollars a pop.

“It’s a beach, Frank,” he said wearily. “It’s just a beach. Will you let go a’ me, now?”

Frank looked down, paled, and released him as if burned. 

Suppressing a sigh, Vinnie reached out and grabbed Frank’s hand back, struggling a little until Frank subsided. “They’re not gonna think any less of you if you accidentally touch me, you know.”

Frank blanched, and tried again to pull his hand away. “I’d rather they didn’t think of me at all.”

For the first time since the hotel’s van driver had twitched his ass for the tip, Vinnie felt like laughing. “It’s only your first day here, Frank.”

“What’s so funny?” Frank demanded under his breath.

“Nothing.” Nothing he could explain, anyway. “Just relax, you’ll get used to it.”

Frank hrmphed. “Yeah, right.”

Vinnie lay back on the lounger and dragged the towel down over his eyes. Frank might have a point.

It had seemed like such a good idea when he’d run across the ad. Club Med had seemed like such a Frank thing to do—in an exorbitant, decadent sort of way—and the west coast of Mexico had seemed far enough from D.C. to assuage even the most active of paranoias.

Hell, it wasn’t even far enough to assuage his own.

Holiday Fantasy week was supposed to be a relaxed, low-key haven where guys like himself and Frank could enjoy a comfortable vacation without worrying about prying eyes, breaking taboos, or doing without room service. Frank had translated it as Club Med’s best effort to earn its share of income from the homosexual community, and gone on to affirm that neither he nor Vinnie belonged here.

He remembered that argument as clear as day: Yeah right, Frank, we’re not queer, we just fuck each other. Frank had paled, and griped, and yelped “Stop saying that!” just like he always did, like Vinnie was beginning to think he always would. Vinnie had pinned him down once, and received a stunning, “I’m not saying we aren’t practicing homosexual behavior, Vinnie—”

“Well that’s a relief.” 

“—I’m just saying that neither one of us is really…well, you know.

“No,” Vinnie had replied straight-faced, “I don’t know.” Frank glared more fiercely.

“We don’t exercise stereotypical conduct,” he said stiffly, resorting to copspeak. “We don’t practice high-risk behaviors. We don’t associate or identify with the culture or the sub-culture and if I have anything to do with it, we’re not going to.” Vince hadn’t expected a Club Med to do it, either. He hadn’t expected it to go homo and put its staffers in leather handcuffs—and it didn’t. To the casual eye, all these people were just average Yuppie Capitalists, as American as Mom and Apple Pie. But it was still more queer than Frank wanted to be, and he refused to be comfortable with it.

Unfortunately, the trip had been sort of a surprise, and Frank had voiced his opinion after it was too late to get the money back. 

Besides, vacations together that had anything to do with normal society had consistently been disasters. Frank spent too much time being paranoid, and it tended to rub off on Vinnie. You think the room service knows something? You think the maid noticed the bed? What if somebody sees us? Sorry, Vinnie, but…. By the end of the week, Vinnie was asking the same questions and they were both too wired to get it up.

Pathetic.

Shadows played beyond his towel, light-and-dark, light-and-dark like someone walking back and forth in his sun. Or Frank’s hand waving through his sunlight. Just trying to get his attention using the old trick of irritation. Which worked better than anything else, but not this time.

He had really thought this would be the answer, damnit.

He still hadn’t entirely given up on it. “Whatever you’re doin’, Frank, stop it.” Surprisingly, the flickering light beyond his towel stopped. They had a better chance here of acting like people who loved each other than they did anywhere else outside Frank’s own livingroom. “Frank, I want you to think about something.” A clearly recognizable grunt answered. “Take a look at those guys out there.”

“You want me to look, or to think?”

Frank, being funny. It was a nice surprise. He continued quietly, “Go on, have a look. You c’n look at them, they’re looking at you—”

“They’re looking at you.”

He refused to be distracted. “Whatever. Just look at ’em.” Vinnie didn’t have to look; the picture was still strong in his mind’s eye, a discomfiting array of men ranging from the obscenely handsome to the obscenely rich to…well, probably to just the obscene. “You checked ’em all out?”

“For what, tan lines? Priors?” Frank chuckled darkly at his own humor.

“For whatever you think they’re checkin’ you out for.” 

“Oh. Culpability. Fear of entrapment.”

Vinnie refused to rise to the bait for that one. He continued casually, “You think they look good out there? I know some of ’em were probably just your type.”

“I don’t have a ‘type’.”

“Pretend you do.”

He listened to the deep sigh like a warning siren, and tensed for whatever Frank was going to drop on him. “Vincenzo, I know you thought you were doin’ the right thing, but lemme tell you, nothin’ in the world helps my forty-nine year old inferiority complex like bein’ surrounded by people who are either better lookin’ than me, younger than me or richer than me.”

Lying there, the sun baking his bare skin, feeling sweat prickle in his armpits and knowing that he’d paid people to take care of his every whim, Vinnie was absolutely floored. All the time he’d known Frank, and especially the time they’d been intimate, it had never occurred to him that the man worried about crap like that. It was so antithetical to the angry bastard who knew he was right, or the strong father who kept being strong whether he thought he could be or not, or most especially the man who scorned pretentiousness for the weakness it was.

He jerked the towel off his face and stared stupidly at the back of his lover’s head. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Frank’s head turned again, face still barely visible against the wash of sky, and again he was sure of the expression: Frank was scowling for all he was worth. “Yeah. I’m kidding, that’s it.”

Vinnie dropped the towel back over his face. He was still in shock. Frank also happened to be the guy who went to Gold’s gym three times a week now to keep Vinnie company…. He was the guy who took all of Vinnie’s attention whenever he strolled through the Nautilus room in his shorts, showing off legs that just kept getting better every time Frank sat at a press. He pictured soft black jersey hugging an ass that Frank McPike should damned well have noticed by now made Vinnie’s mouth water whenever they had the chance to do something about it. Poor ignorant Frank; Vinnie had never mentioned how much he liked watching him in sweatshirt and gym shorts—mentioning it would have guaranteed Frank never wearing the stuff again, and Vinnie wasn’t willing to lose it.

He shifted in his lounger, subtly lifting a leg. Thinking about Frank in the gym sent heat straight to his groin, and getting hard out here in public would mortify them both. He tried instead to look objectively at Frank’s body, like a stranger might. He tried to be hard on it, and judge it like Frank was obviously thinking these people would. Its problems had to do with there being too little of it: too much body, too little leg. Frank was short and he knew it, and Vince had always suspected that two thirds of his hostility resided in that fact alone: short guys learned to overcompensate or they got their asses kicked. The other third was from Big Mike McPike. But the rest—broad ribs carried flat, heavy muscle, right in style for the ’90’s guy. Frank’s narrow waist was one that Vinnie would happily have paid a million bucks to have. His arms were nicely muscled, big without being bulky until he was lifting, and that was another story entirely. His ass—Vinnie shed even the pretense of objectivity. Frank had a body Vinnie loved, smooth skin and nice muscle, warm to the touch and a sensual wet dream to hold. His memory traced veins up the soft skin of Frank’s inner forearm and elbow, tongue feeling his lover shudder at the intimate touch. Almost everything about Frank turned him on, from the soft hair on his thighs to the firm heat of his ass to the thickness of his—Vinnie swore, jerking the towel off his face and jackknifing upright. He scanned the beach, letting the sun sting his eyes and burn the incriminating images out of his mind. Beside him Frank flinched, skittish.

He looked at the shadowed profile, skittish himself, and turned his eyes back to the people out there on the sand. “I’m all three,” he said, staring out at the sparkle of sun on water.

Frank had forgotten the question. “Huh?”

“These people. You said they were either younger, better looking or richer. I’m all three, why don’t you worry about me?”

“I do, Vinnie,” he said cryptically. “All the time.”

“Get the hell outta here.”

“Yeah. You wish.”

The heat under Vinnie’s skin altered subtly, prickling anger straightening the hair on his forearms. “Tell me you’re kidding me,” he said tightly.

Frank looked around at him, and Vinnie’s new position let him see the pensive face in clear, sharp relief. Frank pursed his lips and looked apologetic. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it the way you took it. I’ve got plenty of other reasons to worry about you.” He even sounded sorry, which somehow bothered Vinnie just as much as the insult had. But this wasn’t something he was used to, or very good at. The way he was with his family had never been the way Frank was, and telling the truth tended to overwhelm Frank a little. But he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

He hunched forward a little to shut out anybody nearby, squinting out at the line of the surf. “Frank, don’t you ever notice how good you look? You look better now than you did when I met you back in ’83. Ten years ago. Me, I’ve broken bones and put on weight. You, you just look better. In clothes you look good, and naked you look even—”

“Can it, Vinnie.” The words cut through his monologue. “Talk to me about off-the-rack suits and getting old, I’ll believe you. Talk about the virtues of Rogaine and you’ll have my full attention. Talk about me as a sex object and I’ll know you’ve been out in the sun too long.”

Frank’s eyes were bluer than the pale clear water. Sincere, resigned; it hurt Vinnie to look into them, sometimes. “It’s the truth, and you know it. You take a tape measure to yourself some time—”

“And check my receding hairline?” The irritation was back in force. “Leave me alone.”

Vinnie reached out a hand, watching those pale blue eyes, pleased that Frank didn’t duck away. He touched his fingers to his lover’s chin while wary tropical blue stared impassively at him. He smiled, because he knew Frank liked it. “Not a chance.”

A typical look, rolled eyes and a tug of the chin, and Frank was as back to normal as Vinnie could hope for. “That’s the spirit, partner,” he said encouragingly, and lay back down.

Eyes squeezed shut against the sun, Vinnie began in a conspiratorial whisper, “I got a lotta fantasies about you, and they aren’t in the dark, lemme tellya. I was just lyin’ here thinking of you, of how much I like the feel of your ass in my hands.” The light winked out beyond his eyelids; Frank was resettling, and Vinnie wondered if he was getting to him. He continued gently, “I was thinking stupid things, like how I go for your arms and how they feel when I’m holding you. And how I know you feel when I lick your elbow, or kiss your ears or bite your tits or suck your cock—”

A hand clamped down hard on his mouth, imprisoning his head against the lounge chair and cutting off his words. Frank was glaring furiously at him. “Shh!”

Vinnie opened his mouth against the hard-pressed palm, and licked it. When Frank jerked his hand away Vinnie said even more quietly, “If you’ve got a problem with yourself I wish you wouldn’t bug me with it, because the time you wanna spend arguing your desirability compared to the next guy’s, is the time I wanna spend makin’ love with you.”

“Just stop it.”

Vinnie looked closely, assessing. Frank was half-aroused and embarrassed about it, and for Vinnie Terranova that was plenty of progress over how they’d both felt stepping off the plane into a five thousand dollar fairyland. Feeling generous, he closed his eyes again and let his partner off the hook. “The help doesn’t give a shit what we talk about.”

“Yeah well, just the same, you telegraphing stuff like that in public makes me paranoid. Maybe these people don’t care one way or the other, but I sure as hell do.”

Vinnie laughed; he couldn’t help it. Everything made Frank paranoid. One of the odd little joys of having a lover was learning how to take care of her—him. Learning how to give the other guy room when he needed it, especially when that guy was a guilty ex-Catholic Mick who was still scared of what he’d become. Vinnie conceded that on a beach filled with the rich and the beautiful, and all of ’em queers, Frank probably needed that room now. Later, maybe Vinnie would be able to cajole his lover into a sunset swim and a nice quiet dinner. For now, he pulled the towel back down over his face and let the subject drop. Frank was wearing SPF Infinity; they could both afford to sprawl in the sun and relax for awhile.

He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until one of the staff people came up and nudged his arm. It startled him awake and he jerked upright in the chair, confused by a lowering sun and a deeply tanned, apologetic face above a snow-white Club Med polo shirt. Cheshire-cat teeth as white as the shirt grinned at him, and the guy subtly tapped the face of his wristwatch. “Mr.—?”

“Terranova,” he muttered, shaking his head to clear the fog off his brain. He stared over the guy’s shoulder at the empty lounger beside him, wondering what he was looking for….

“Mr. Terranova, sorry to disturb you but you’ve been resting for just over an hour, now. We try to keep an eye on our guests, make sure they don’t get so much sun the first day that they can’t enjoy the rest of their visit with us.”

“Yeah, sure. Thanksalot.” Frank. Oh, yeah, Frank had been sitting there paranoid before Vinnie had dozed off. He glanced around the poolside, then out toward the sand.

A polite cough brought his head around; the staffer was still standing there effacing himself. “I believe your friend took a walk toward our stables?” he said, pointing south down the beach, and right into the sun.

Vinnie wished he had a wallet tucked into his Speedo’s somewhere; this guy deserved a helluva tip. He checked the name tag instead, storing the information for later when he could do something about it. “Thanks again, Billy.” He rolled off the lounger as the guy walked away, dropped the towel back down and retrieved his shirt from where he’d stuck it underneath the chair. So Frank wanted to go riding, did he?

Vinnie never got far enough down the beach to find out. Less than a mile from the hotel, he spotted his partner heading his way, already on the return leg of his trek. Frank was holding a bottle of sunscreen and wearing a particularly stupid-looking straw hat. Vinnie shook his head and slowed to a stroll as Frank approached. “Where did you find that thing?” he asked, tweaking the hat brim.

Frank shrugged, unscrewing the cap on the sunscreen. “They’ve got ’em everywhere around here. When was the last time you put stuff on?”

He shrugged in reply, falling into step beside his lover. “The last time you made me. I figure I’m good for another thirty-six hours before I push the panic button.” Frank huffed. “Don’t worry about it, it’s late enough. I’m fine.” Surprisingly, Frank didn’t lecture him on ultraviolet radiation, nor regale him with stories of sun poisoning and skin cancer. “You want me to put some on you?”

“No!” Frank glanced furtively around. The beach wasn’t exactly crowded here, but there was plenty of foot traffic—more than enough to keep Frank’s paranoia on full alert. Vinnie remembered where he was, watching these people, trying to grasp that every single one of them fucked other men. He’d have smeared sunblock on Frank at Long Island Sound without even thinking about it, but here—

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” he muttered, then changed the subject. “So, where have you been?”

“I just walked a couple miles down the beach. Wanted to see how much of this place Club Med owns, and you know, it’s a hell of a lot. They’ve got an indoor gym, racquetball, tennis courts, horses; they’ve even got a pier and a fishing boat. Probably not theirs, but after the first few million in property value, I guess a bill of sale or a lease document doesn’t really make much difference. I planned on comin’ back to find you dead to the world, what got you off your butt? The hotel burn down?”

Vinnie smirked. “Billy.” Frank just stared patiently at him. “One of the staff guys woke me up, warned me about too much sun on my first day. They’re real helpful around here.” Frank tensed up a little and pursed his lips. Vinnie let it lie. He could make a good guess what Frank was thinking, and even if he was wrong, he didn’t want to know. “Ready to eat?”

“Yeah. They dress for dinner around here?”

“Come on, Frank, I don’t think it’s that kinky a—oww!” He rubbed at his arm where the punch had landed and stopped walking to glare.

“Kid,” Frank said without heat. Vinnie had the overwhelming urge to throw Frank in the water and hold him under a wave. So overwhelming, in fact, that in the next second he was doing it, wrestling for all he was worth with a guy who magically transformed from an achey, slow-moving grump who always complained of the decay of old age, to Underdog. They were wrestling in the sand before the first hint of surf touched his legs, and Vinnie exercised his last and only option, rolling them both into the water and sputtering and coughing as the first wave toppled over them. For the look on Frank’s face and all the yelling that ensued, it was worth it. At least while they were fighting, Frank forgot where they were, and why they were here, and that weird ‘hunted’ look faded from his eyes. And Frank liked it, besides.

Vinnie kept finding himself contained and open-mouthed with his face bent toward a breaking wave, and wondering how Frank did it. They were playing like kids, like Frank so rarely played. Like Vinnie wanted him to play a whole lot more. When he finally dragged himself out of the water, his friend’s last bass giggle an echo in the crash of surf, he parked his butt in the sand and just enjoyed being alive.

Frank paced a couple of steps back and forth in front of him, wringing out his shirt, wiping water off his face and out of his dripping hair, looking generally the worse for wear. And frowning, like he hadn’t enjoyed it. Really working himself up to a full-fledged rant. “Of all the crazy—” he was saying while Vinnie panted, “why the hell do I saddle myself with a maniac who hasn’t even gotten through a mid-life crisis yet? At my age, there are a hundred available women for every man, did you know that? A hundred. And what do I do? I’ve gotta waste my time on a guy thirteen years younger than me who’s got no sense of respect for my advancing age and who enjoys makin’ my life a living hell. I ought to have my head examined.” Water droplets showered down onto the sand making little craters by Vinnie’s right hand.

“Your advancing age?” Vinnie’s sides were already hurting. He couldn’t take much more of this. “When you can’t take me anymore, then I’ll give ya a break.”

Frank sulked at him. “All I want to do on a vacation is get some rest and relaxation, and you wanna roll around in the sand like somethin’ out of ‘From Here to Eternity.’“

“Come on, Frank,” he chided, “there’s nothin’ wrong with a little excitement too.”

“I’ve had more than my share of monument watching and amusement park rides with Drake; that’s what kids are for, to let you get that stuff out of your system. By now, you’re supposed to relax. Smell the flowers. Lie in the sun.” More water rained down on his face as Frank shook his shirt-tails out. 

“What about the lecture on skin cancer you graced me with on the plane? Where does that fit in?”

Frank just glared, and ignored the comment completely. “And you don’t think about these things before you do ’em, do you, Vinnie? What if I’d been wearin’ my glasses in there, huh? What would have happened if I’d lost ’em?”

“Then you’d have had to give up reading cereal boxes at the breakfast table, and you’d prop the book on your knees for a week. No big deal.” It was gratifying to see Frank come out of his shell enough to bitch. It was like a breath of fresh air, familiar as broken-in tennis shoes and just as comfortable. Vinnie lowered his voice. “Or I’d have read to you, anytime you wanted. I got plenty of bed-time stories I bet you’ve never even heard. And I’m pretty sure that most of your hundred middle-aged women haven’t, either.”

That stopped Frank cold. He stared open-mouthed at the seductive parley, and finally choked off a weak snort of laughter, reaching out a hand to help Vinnie up. “You do know how to get my attention, don’t you, Sport?”

Vinnie took Frank’s extended hand and held it, meeting the soft look with one of his own and feeling good about this place for the first time. “I know how to get a lotta things out of you, Frank,” he promised, and watched the interest flash over his lover’s face.

Frank shook his head, planted his feet and tugged until Vinnie went with it and stood up. They were standing closer than they’d purposely been to each other since before his last assignment, over two months ago. Frank’s head was tilted up just enough to keep eye contact. “Vinnie, you are gonna wear me out,” he breathed. No warning, no threat. Anticipation, maybe.

“And you’re gonna love it.”

Frank smiled and lowered his eyes, and Vinnie felt it all the way to his toes. He leaned in to kiss, but there was suddenly no mouth there; Frank shrank back and ducked away. “Sorry,” he said, still smiling. “You’ve got an old school boy, here, Vince. That’s out.”

Vinnie wasn’t surprised. He could wait.

But not for long.

Five minutes later Frank pulled a discreet two paces away from him as they neared the sprawling beachside patios, and Vinnie let him do it. Frank was fully clothed and still dripping wet, which was enough to make anybody feel a little stupid. But the real problem was the overabundance of gay men. The closer they were, the weirder everything got. Vinnie understood Frank’s feelings all too well, but the difference between him and Frank was that he wasn’t willing to let it get to him enough to screw up his vacation. When guys they passed smiled and nodded, he smiled right back while Frank tugged at his sticking shirt collar or admired the ocean view. When they climbed the stone steps to the pool-side area, Billy trotted over with a stack of towels and handed one to each of them.

“There’s a small open showering area you could take advantage of, Mr. Terranova, since you’re in your suit,” he said, pointing over his shoulder, smiling brilliantly as he turned toward Frank. Vinnie wondered if the people here were paid to show their teeth like that.

“Mr.—?” Billy prompted Frank. Who looked at the ground and muttered something totally unintelligible. Billy didn’t even stumble. “Well, sir,” he said brightly, “we maintain a store of towels over by the pool house; help yourself.”

“Thanks, Billy,” Vinnie said for both of them. Frank looked ready to jump the railing at the personal service. “Frank, why don’t you go on to the room and get ready for dinner? I’ll meet you later.”

Frank didn’t even say anything, he just nodded stiffly and slinked toward the lobby doors.

“His first time at one of our Club Med Resorts?” Billy asked.

Vinnie bristled a little at the intrusion. “Yeah, what of it?”

“Nothing at all, Mr. Terranova,” Billy replied, turning up the brightness on his smile. “I was just going to ask if there was anything we could do to make your friend more comfortable.”

Vinnie wasn’t sure how to read this guy. He looked clean-cut, legitimate and…well, helpful. But Vince was afraid saying “yes” would find them in an orgy somewhere. He settled for an aggressive “Anything?” and a wary stare.

Billy smiled again, not at all suggestive. “Well, we have organized recreational sports available here: golf, tennis, fishing, racquetball, sailboarding. We have staff who offer classes two times a day, for groups of four to ten. I thought your friend might enjoy lessons in something.”

Vinnie considered making a pass to see if the guy was after sex or just obsessively compulsive about his job, but he didn’t want to cope if it was accepted. He didn’t even want to know; he was way out of his depth, all of a sudden, and resented it. “You really get into your job here, don’t you, Billy?”

The Smile again. “Yes, sir. I’ve worked with our resort for six years now, and it’s been a wonderful experience.” 

Great. “You do the gay circuit, or what?”

For the first time, Billy frowned. “No. I’ve worked here in Acapulco the entire time. About your friend…?”

“Nah, thanks. He’s fine.”

“All right.” Billy smiled again and turned away, heading immediately for another wet ocean swimmer who was just coming up the steps. Maybe the staff just was that friendly. Or that well-paid. Or something.

Vinnie shrugged it off and headed for the outdoor showers. 

Cleaned off and mostly dry, he slipped quietly into the hotel room and shucked off his damp bathing suit. The smell of food had accosted him as he walked through the foyer, and he was hungrier than he was dirty. He opened his suitcase and pulled out clean clothes for dinner, dragging jeans on over his damp butt. The sound of water running stopped behind the closed bathroom door, and he decided that maybe he was hungry for other things, too. If anybody was going to shed convention and relax around here, it would have to be him and he knew it. Accepted it, even, as his job in this relationship. When Frank opened the door a minute later, Vinnie was waiting for him. Kissing for all he was worth, gentle and hungry and determined to help his partner unwind and appreciate what they had here, he pressed a naked, damp McPike up against the wall.

“Just stay still,” he whispered, staring into startled eyes. “And stay quiet.” Without a word he dropped to his knees and, amid the mild, confused protests, sucked his partner off. No fanfare, no drama, maybe not even much passion. Just the feel and taste of warm clean flesh hardening for him. Just Frank’s tension relaxing into pleasure for awhile, and hands carding through his damp hair to cradle his head as he moved and coaxed and cared. It was good, the erotic contact making him salivate, making his skin come alive with anticipation. Muscle contracted under his hands, picking up the rhythm and beginning to work with him. Skin trembled and the sound of Frank’s breathing was like a storm wind rushing in his ears. He was almost startled when he heard the choked-off groan; he had lost himself somewhere in the sensual pleasure of Frank’s lust. Fingers tightened in warning and Vinnie pulled away a little, holding the head, tasting and swallowing and feeling the reflexive jerking against his lips.

When it was done he stood up and stepped away, licking his lips and showing almost as many teeth as Billy had. “Welcome to Mexico, Frank.” Still panting a little, leaning against the wall with his head fallen forward, Frank just laughed. It was music to Vinnie’s ears. “Come on, I’m starving.”

Frank’s head snapped up in surprise, and heavy-lidded blue eyes peered speculatively at him. “What about you?”

It wasn’t urgent. He didn’t want it to be. Adjusting his erection carefully in his jeans, he sent it boring thoughts and grabbed a polo shirt. “Later.”

A hand caught his arm, turning him. Frank’s eyes wide-awake, now, boring the question into him. “You sure?”

He smiled, leaned down and let Frank kiss him. “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m really starving. Get dressed.”

• • •

Queers looked more threatening en masse.

Walking into the already crowded dining room, Vinnie realized that. Seeing a bunch of people walking on a beach was a little strange, but even that was different from seeing them sitting in couples and foursomes in an expansive dining hall. Guys hanging out on a beach didn’t have the same sort of oppressive openness that guys holding hands across dinner tables, or kissing in the hallways, did. He was beginning to understand Frank’s discomfort, if not his paranoia.

And Frank—well, he had stiffened up when a couple had skipped down the stairs hand in hand, and that had only been the warmup for dinner. Vinnie could practically see Frank’s skin crawling. He’d expected his partner to be a little uncomfortable—his partner was always a little uncomfortable—but this was too much.

Leaning across the table he whispered, “Hey, relax, willya? They’re just people.”

Frank’s fork hit his plate with a clatter. He said quietly, “Sorry.”

Vinnie pointed at the fish on Frank’s plate. “Eat up.” Resolutely, Frank picked up his fork. “Good food, huh?” he added around a mouthful of salad. Frank nodded vaguely, picking bones out of his grilled salmon and looking furtively around the room.

Vinnie glanced around, himself. This place was a nightmare, dim enough to pretend it was being romantic but plenty light enough to see what people were doing. Big and elegant, it was walled on one side by glass, overlooking some kind of elaborate, heavily-lit garden. He felt like a fish in a bowl. The two guys who were sitting on a half-hidden bench beyond the window were visible enough for anybody who was looking as they melted into a clinch. Vinnie didn’t know whether to be turned on or repulsed, but he knew which option Frank had chosen. He looked away, refusing to give his partner any more ammunition, got down two or three more bites while Frank kept picking, then tried again. “Come on, lighten up. They’re just eating, Frank.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, “but it’s the way they’re eating.”

“They’re using knives and forks just like you are,” he sniped. He looked at his partner’s full plate. “Were.”

Frank dropped the fork with a clatter. “They’re fawning all over each other!”

“Hey, mea culpa already,” he griped. What, Frank thought he was happy with how this was turning out? “Just eat your food and we’ll disappear, all right?”

Frank cast a newer, more discriminating eye his way, and Vinnie ducked back to his plate. He wasn’t comfortable either. This stuff was weird, and it had been a stupid idea to come here. Even dumber to think Frank would like it. Neither one of them was cut out for this kind of stuff.

Frank being Frank, smelled it on him.

Five minutes later they’d thrown down their napkins.

“Feelin’ right at home?” whispered into his ear as they left the dining hall.

“Yeah, yeah,” he admitted. Pointless not to cop to it. “But I’m not letting it spoil my appetite, if you know what I mean.” Frank, bless him, flushed and stepped away. The flush warmed Vinnie, because it meant Frank was thinking about him no matter what the distraction. It meant that no matter how many times Frank needed to check the door, or how often he worried aloud about paper-thin walls and people hearing him or made stupid jokes about the potential for hidden mikes in the floral arrangement, Frank would get over it and they’d make love until they ran out of ways to express the word. Vinnie shadowed him all the way back to their room with that in mind.

He handed over his key, smiled indulgently when Frank glanced furtively up and down the hall about a dozen times, and palmed his lover’s ass to get him through the door. Frank spun around inside the room, glaring. “Will you please stop doin’ things like that in public?”

“No. Not when nobody else is there, I won’t.”

Frank subsided, pacing around the room. Checking the flower pot. Eyeing the walls that adjoined other rooms. Flicking the curtains so that they overlapped each other by a good three inches. If he weren’t so serious about it, it would have been funny. As it stood, Vinnie just accepted it as his duty to distract the man to better things.

He stepped up close behind and wrapped an arm around the narrow waist, running one hand down to his partner’s where it fiddled with the curtains, and entwining their fingers. “C’mon, let’s go to bed.” He watched the familiar face draw down into a frown. “What’re you worried about, Frank? The FBI doesn’t have authorization to work in Mexico. The CIA’s got better things to do than spy on Feds on vacation, and the Mexican police get a ton of cash to leave resorts like this alone no matter what’s goin’ on. The other guys in this place are either cruising for sex or already having it or dressing up to make fools of themselves in the bar; nobody cares what you do with your downtime.” He pressed his hips forward, rubbing his groin against the firm resilience of Frank’s butt. “Nobody but me. Now me, I care a lot.”

The fingers entwined in his squeezed, and Frank’s head leaned back against his shoulder. Vinnie stood quietly, enjoying the moment, drawing in the bouquet: English Leather aftershave and the undefinable scent of body chemistry. The smell was so much Frank that he just breathed it in, feeling his skin tingle with the knowledge. “Sorry, Vinnie,” Frank finally said. And he still sounded genuine.

Vinnie sighed, his feelings tugging strongly at him. “I’m sorry too. I guess this was a dumb idea.” No guessing about it; he was an idiot to have brought Frank here, perfect beach or no. Vinnie wondered if they would ever catch a break. He loved Frank and he wanted him, and he hated being compelled to demand. But that was the way Frank seemed to want to play it at times like these, as if exposure would somehow be mitigated by the fact that Frank hadn’t been the one to make the first move. Even when his very presence in a place like this was incriminating enough…. Vinnie turned him so they were facing each other, waiting until he felt strong, square hands slide comfortably over his hips. Frank had that “this is probably a bad idea” look that he wore so often—the one that never actually got in the way.

“Ya know,” Frank began quietly, casually, while the hands began to knead at Vinnie’s buttocks, “this is a real nice room.” He tilted his head toward the closed, curtained French windows. “Nice beach out there, too.”

Pleased, relieved that Frank seemed to be sidestepping some of his usual paranoia, Vinnie echoed the touch of those hands on his ass. “Yeah, it is.”

“And I kinda make it hard for you to enjoy yourself, sometimes.”

He spread his legs a little and tugged gently, touching their groins together, feeling the pleasure pulse through him. Maybe it was the earlier blowjob. If it put Frank in this mellow a mood, he’d do it before every meal. “Yeah, you do. But don’t worry, I don’t hold it against you.” And he didn’t. When Frank was with him, or even on the job looking out for him, he knew without a single doubt that somebody was devoted to him. No reservations, no limits. That was plenty in trade for honeymoon jitters every time they went someplace alone. He leaned down and kissed Frank, his lover’s closed lips pressing against his own in a pleasant welcome that changed by degrees as Frank crawled out of his head and back into his body. Lips opened, tongue entreated, jaw dipped and teased and pressed until his mouth felt completely fucked. Amazing, how Frank could do that.

There was still the shadow of discomfort on Frank’s face when Vinnie drew away, and Frank was apprehensively studying the closed curtains out of the corner of his eye. “Hey,” he breathed, “you’re one decent shower ahead of me. What do you say to us going and checking out that bathroom together?”

Frank’s eyelids blinked once, slowly, covering a speculative gleam. “That bathroom’s bigger than my living room, Vince; you’ll love it.” Unspoken but obvious, the biggest reason Frank would love it was that it was harder to spy on a john than on any other room in a building. He wondered how Frank had held still for the blowjob, before.

“I’m countin’ on that.”

Frank’s eyes wandered furtively back to the curtain. “Getting yourself stuck with a paranoid old guy like me,” he muttered, “people are gonna wonder about you, Vincenzo.”

He squeezed Frank’s buttocks. “I knew what I got when I settled down with you, Frank. I know I’ll be lucky if you loosen up by the time the plane gets back to New York. But nobody’s asking you to apologize,” Vinnie said, feeling the heat off his lover’s body like a cheerful fire. “I’m just asking you to show me you missed me. C’mon.”

“That’s easy enough, Vince. Just lemme…”

Frank didn’t want to say it, but the intent was clear. He wanted to check the locks with the same kind of anxious paranoia that made people on a trip want to go back home and check the stove. “You catch up.”

He let Frank go and went into the bathroom, shucking shoes and shirt on his way. Whistling. “This is some place, Frank,” he called, unbuttoning his jeans. The bathroom really was almost as big as Frank’s living room, decorated with forest greens and Spanish reds, with paintings of native birds framed by the frosted glass windows. The whirlpool bath was big enough for four, if they were cozy, and double shower heads were mounted in a glass stall in one corner.

“Yeah, it is,” Frank’s voice replied from the doorway.

He turned, and stared. Frank’s shirt was unbuttoned and hanging open, the pale cream starkly contrasting smooth flesh tones and darker dusting of hair. Relaxed muscle was still pronounced, heavy at chest, flat along Frank’s stomach. Seeing his partner half-undressed was incredibly erotic to him; it always had been. Absently unbuckling his belt, Frank was staring around the room with an architect’s eye—or an accountant’s. Vinnie didn’t care which, when it turned him on like this to witness it. “Frank, why didn’t we didn’t spend the afternoon in here?”

“I think it had somethin’ to do with you thinking they’d run out of sun if you didn’t go and get some of it today.” He shrugged. “Or maybe it was me bein’ scared the help would think we were queers.” 

“I got a feeling they’re pretty sure of that.”

His partner frowned. “Yeah, me too.”

Vinnie long-armed him into a hug before Frank could get introspective. “You know how long it’s been since I’ve made love to you?”

Frank looked up from under heavy lids, and pressed close enough that their bare stomachs rubbed. “About an hour.”

“Okay,” he grinned, “you know how long it’s been since you made love to me?”

Frank pursed his lips, feigning surprise. “About a month. Gee, you’ve got some real patience there, Vinnie.”

“Not anymore.”

Strong square hands tugged at his, pulling their hands together between them. Frank was staring down into Vinnie’s palm, running his thumbs over the tender skin. It made goosebumps run up his arms. “We can probably both squeeze into that tub; why don’t you run the water while I think of what to do to you.”

Vinnie chuckled and reached for the taps. The jacuzzi would have easily seated four. As the tub started to fill, Frank shrugged off his shirt and sat down on the tub rim, belt loose and pants unzipped. Knowing he was being watched and knowing that Frank liked to, Vinnie turned toward the wall and slid his hands into his jeans. He caught Frank’s eyes in the floor to ceiling mirrors; not sleepy now, they were open wide and smiling as Vinnie eased the denim over his hips and down his thighs.

“Vinnie,” Frank said laconically, “What ever happened to romance?”

“Huh?”

“I keep thinkin’, we’re two mature men—” he looked up over his glasses rims— “well, one of us is, anyway—we’ve got careers that keep our minds off each other more than either one of us would prefer. I keep thinkin’ we oughtta make it special, do somethin’ romantic, and we keep winding up in a john somewhere humping ourselves senseless.”

Vinnie looked up from stepping out of his jeans but Frank, preoccupied, wasn’t making eye contact. “You complaining?” Eyebrows jerked up in feigned indignation. “Not on your life, pal. Somehow, humping in a john seems perfect. That’s the weird part.”

“This isn’t exactly a truck stop toilet, Frank,” Vinnie parried, turning around. “It’s the best fuckin’ john we’ve ever come across.” 

Frank did look up, then, his eyes narrowed and cryptic. “I guess we’ll see about that.”

Vinnie smiled. “Yeah, I guess we will.”

As it turned out, it was the best john they’d ever come across. Frank had shed more inhibitions than Vinnie had expected him to, and somewhere between the strung-out sexual tension, the jacuzzi jets and a jar of Vaseline Frank had dragged out of his shaving kit, Vinnie got every deferred need answered in full. Frank could do that, sometimes; he’d approach sex with the single-minded determination he used at work, and Vinnie would find himself loved to within an inch of his life. Lost in it.

That was definitely what had happened this time. He was enervated, brain foggy and muscles lax with loving. He released a satisfied sigh as he nudged Frank under the dual shower spray, gentle now where he’d been rough before. “Cummere,” he whispered, pulling warm, wet, tired lover up against him while the water pelted gently down. Frank went willingly, tucking his head in against Vinnie’s shoulder, and Vinnie spent long mindless moments smoothing his hands over the familiar contours of Frank’s body. Fingers dallied over his ass, just stroking the skin. “You okay?” he asked.

“Okay?” Frank responded blankly.

Better than okay, then; Frank was as brainless as he was. He soaped his hands and slid them down Frank’s belly, working white lather into dark pubic hair. Genitals were soft and pliant in his cupped hands and he squeezed gently, toying with them because he loved the feel of Frank in his hands. “Stop it,” Frank muttered, pressing up against him to restrict his fondling.

“Why?”

“Because you doing that makes me want it, and my body hasn’t caught up with my libido. Don’t frustrate me.”

There was nothing to say to that; he understood the feeling, when so much wanted to be expressed and enjoyed. They were always making up for lost time. “Frank, I love you. You know I love you?”

“Of course. What, do you think I just crawled out from under a rock or somethin’?” The acerbic tone made Vinnie smile as strong arms banded tighter around his waist. The silence stretched out languorously between them as the water rained down, and Vinnie thought, maybe this had been a good idea after all.

They spent the rest of the night with the door locked and the television on, alternately dozing, fondling, making love or watching Spanish tv. It was perfect.

The next morning, Vinnie pulled his swimsuit on under a pair of cut-off blue jeans, added an old Fordham sweatshirt and pronounced himself dressed for the day.

Frank vetoed.

“You’re not gonna wear that, are you?” he demanded, tucking a polo shirt into stiff new Levi’s.

“We’re goin’ to the beach, aren’t we?”

“Not before we eat breakfast, we’re not. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“That’s because you wouldn’t eat last night.”

Frank frowned with the memory. “Well, nobody says I’m gonna enjoy it today, either, but basic survival instincts are winning out.”

Vinnie was going to enjoy it, he didn’t care if there was an orgy by the desert cart. He was hungry. He fingered the cut-out sleeves of his sweatshirt. “So you think I’m underdressed for the dining room?”

“No,” Frank said placidly, “I just think you look like a slob. And if these people are gonna think that you and I are—you know, together—the least you can do is show a little class.”

Vinnie’s brain slipped off the rails and futilely spun its wheels. It stayed that way as he mechanically reached for better clothes and stripped off what he was wearing. One minute Frank was terrified of being identified at all, the next that he’d be identified as having bad taste. Vinnie didn’t know what to think.

They got to the restaurant dining room, and the sight of the food brought his brain back in gear. Frank, momentarily distracted from the other guys, blanched at the buffet and shook his head. “I guess if people can afford these kinds of vacations, they can afford open heart surgery,” he asided.

Vinnie refused to be deterred. Freaked out or not, worried about Frank or not, there were some priorities in life that he refused to ignore. He eyed the buffet. As long as they had spreads like this whenever he wanted them, he could forgive this place just about anything. “That’s the spirit, Frank. Let’s dig in.”

“You dig in, I’ll go find a table.”

Vinnie shrugged; as long as he could eat, he didn’t care. And they had everything here. He picked up two plates and nudged them along, loading up one with quiche, bacon, corned beef hash, wheat toast in defense of Frank’s bitching at him, scrambled eggs and hash browns. For Frank he pointed at all the healthy-looking stuff and let them glop it on, including some sort of oaty-sounding box cereal he was sure Frank wouldn’t touch.

He was wrong. Silently, methodically, Frank cleaned the plate. He never looked up, he never said a word. But he ate. Vinnie refused to complain. He emptied his first plate and went back for his second, and worked through that while Frank sucked down a second cup of coffee. Finally, he pushed back the remains. “How long are you gonna stay wired, Frank?”

Eyebrows raised. “Until I get back to Jersey. Why?”

“Seriously.”

“I am serious.”

“Oh, come on.” He glanced around, and leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially, “I know you’re a little uncomfortable, but it’s not like there’s orgies going on in the swimming pool.”

Frank shrugged. “I guess the price tag weeds out the riff raff.”

Vinnie’s general assessment being that the mega-rich were much more depraved than an average working stiff, he hadn’t considered that. He wondered if twenty-five hundred a visit was for the wanna-be rich set, and decided that Frank might have a point. “Okay, yeah. But no kiddin’, though, there’s a million things to do around here. Aren’t you gonna have some fun?”

“Yes, I’m gonna have some fun. In fact,” he said, draining his coffee cup, “I’ll start right now.” He waived Vinnie back down when he started to rise. “Go and empty another one of those serving trays, I’m just gonna take a walk.”

Vinnie settled back down in the chair and looked around for somebody with a coffee pot. Frank wanted to contemplate his navel—or whatever it was that Frank contemplated. He always did that on vacations, wandering off by himself for awhile each day. Vinnie couldn’t begrudge his lover the time; he liked a little solitude now and then, himself. “Don’t forget your sunscreen. And find me later, I’ll either be—”

“—on the beach or by the pool. Surprise.”

Vinnie offered a radiant smile that could have easily eclipsed Billy’s. “It’s good to hang out with people who know ya.”

Frank threw down his napkin and rolled his eyes. But he smiled, too.

After breakfast Vinnie went to the room and sifted through his clothes, finally shoving the cut-offs back into his bag. Changed into acceptable beach clothes, he went on a little exploring of his own, looking for something to do to burn off the last plate of breakfast. There were some guys at the volleyball sandpits, so he joined a game for awhile, worked up a healthy sweat, and returned poolside to loaf.

There were probably forty people around the patio, some of them swimming but most of them lounging around sipping bloody marys. Dragging a lounge chair out into the sun, he wondered about what Frank had said the day before, about everybody being younger or prettier—Vince could care less about richer, and so could Frank. He looked around with measuring eyes, trying to ignore the occasional eye that met his and measured right back. Yeah, plenty of the guys were younger than Frank. Hell, plenty were younger than Vinnie, but he wasn’t willing to build up a complex about it. Quite a few of them were stunningly built; Vinnie could see “Personal Trainer” stamped into their biceps. And while he supposed he could get it up for a few of those guys if he had to, he didn’t care about any of them. 

Frank, he cared about.

Frank in blue jeans made him want to take them off with his teeth. These guys in next to nothing made him want to roll over and take a nap. That was something that Frank didn’t understand, either. For the life of him, Vinnie couldn’t relate to his partner’s problem. He kicked back in the lounge chair, struggling a little with the creepy sense of being watched. He knew who it was: a guy sit-ting under an umbrella near the poolside bar whose eyes he’d met and probably held too long. To hell with him, Vinnie thought. If the guy liked big bodies, then let him look. If he wanted to do more than look, well that was his problem. Vinnie had a hot-tempered Irishman on his hands and that was plenty.

That issue settled to his satisfaction, he rolled onto his belly and baked until every muscle and bone was limp with relaxation, then he dragged his chair into the shade and sacked out for a nap. As long as he pretended this was Quantico, or prison or some private boys’ club, then the absence of women wasn’t a problem.

The sun was almost directly overhead when Frank woke him up. “Remember I told you about the pier and the boat?” Frank asked.

Vinnie nodded and stretched, unwilling to use up any more energy than was absolutely necessary.

“Well, they take half-day trips. I signed up to go fishing in the morning.”

He groaned, exhausted by the mere thought. “Frank, your idea of ‘morning’ and mine are so different, I don’t even wanna think about it. And while we’re on the subject, so is your idea of ‘fun’.”

Frank’s head tilted sideways, revealing the warning look in sleepy blue eyes. “Youth is wasted on the young.”

Vinnie had to smile; yesterday, Frank bitched because he was too hyperactive, and today Frank bitched because he was too lazy. Well, as long as Frank had somethin’ to bitch about, they’d both be happy. “Frank, we’re on vacation. Do you have a working definition of what the word ‘vacation’ means? It means sitting around on your ass doing nothing, it means spending money and being extravagant and having as much sex as your dick’ll let you get away with. It definitely means not having to get up at four a.m. to do stuff like go fishing.”

“I know,” Frank blithely agreed. “That’s why I just booked for one. You’re gonna sleep in, big guy, and treat yourself to both our shares of the breakfast buffet when you finally decide to roll out of bed. I figure you can harden two, three whole arteries that way, and I won’t even have to watch.”

Vinnie stared for awhile and finally shook his head. “You know what, Frank? I’ll bet if you took a survey out there, nobody else would be enough of a schmuck to do anything that happens at four o’clock in the morning. Not unless they waited up for it.” 

Frank looked almost genuinely wounded, the look fading to truly genuine self-righteousness. “That boat goes out in the morning with twenty-four people on it so far, pal,” he said, poking Vinnie on the shoulder for emphasis, “so I guess all of us schmucks are going to have a little party together while you sleep alone.”

He dug his heels in and turned to stare at his partner. Twenty-four people out of, maybe a few hundred, were going to drag their asses up before dawn so they could ride on a boat, get seasick and puke their guts up? There was something seriously wrong with that picture.

But he wasn’t gonna tell the Fly Fishing King that, not for a million bucks. “Yeah, well, just don’t party too much, huh? Because by the time you get back I’ll have rested up and had a nice, nutritious meal, and I’ll be ready for some “sporting events” of my own.”

Frank hrumphed. “Y’know, you got a one-track mind.”

“Yeah. Lucky you.”

They spent the afternoon sightseeing in town, snacking on fish tacos from corner stands and buying trinkets for friends back home. Technically, Frank bought trinkets. Vinnie carried them, wondering how Frank knew enough people to get rid of all the stuff he got. When they returned to the hotel, Frank waved Vinnie on toward the dining room. “I’m not hungry. Go ahead and eat, I’ll be up in the room relaxing.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just wanna lie down.”

It didn’t hit him until Frank was across the lobby and out of sight. Frank didn’t want to eat in that dining room again. Vinnie shrugged his shoulders, went in by himself, ate, fended off a subtle pass and ordered chicken with fettucine to go.

When he slipped into the room the television was on low, the French door was open onto the patio, and Frank was dozing on his stomach across the bed. Vinnie paused in the doorway, taking in the scene: quiet television voices broadcasting muted background noise, one lamp sending soft shadows across the room, curtains wafting gently with the breeze off the ocean. And Frank, barefoot and stripped to the waist, just rising onto his elbows to offer a muzzy hello. It was—beautiful, and that wasn’t usually a word Vinnie equated to himself and Frank.

“Stay there.” 

Frank frowned a little. “Huh?”

“Just relax, Frank,” he said softly, setting the styrofoam container on the table and looking at the phone. “You want a little wine? I was thinkin’ I should order a bottle.”

“No, thanks,” Frank mumbled into the pillow. “I’m fine.”

Frank was more than fine. Vinnie looked down at the bare expanse of back, all smooth skin and dense, tapered muscle, and he had to put his hands on it. “You stay still,” he whispered when muscles tightened under his hands. The mood of this unconscious setting and the whole relaxing day was hitting him heavily, teasing through his groin and tugging at his penchant for romance. “Yeah. You stay still, and let me do everything.” He needed stuff and didn’t want to be interrupted later. “I’ll be right back.”

When he came out of the bathroom Frank’s face was turned toward him. Eyes, lazy and crinkled at the corners with the beginnings of a smile, watched him pace across the room. He dropped the washcloth, towel, baby oil and Vaseline on the nightstand, and turned under Frank’s quiet, watchful eyes to take off his clothes. The bedcover rustled as he stepped out of his jeans and he smiled, turning to see what his lover was up to. But Frank was just lying there, smiling a little more. All too happy to play the game.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, cupping his hands over the heavy ball of shoulders. The muscle was warm and relaxed, and he rubbed long smooth arcs up and down his partner’s back. The breeze from the open window was cool on his bare skin, and rich with the scent of ocean and green things. Running his hands over Frank with the proprietary touch he had earned over the years, Vinnie decided that he really, really liked this place. He liked everything about it. He liked the way Frank could lie there so relaxed and self-indulgent under his hands. He loved every single thing he was planning to do….

He spent long luxurious minutes drawing muffled groans from Frank with a massage, and watching oiled muscle shine in the lamplight. Frank soaked up this kind of attention like a sponge, and Vinnie didn’t blame him. This was what Frank had been talking about last night: romance, attention to the little details that so often slipped by unnoticed in a hurried, closeted life. Too much time wasted on work, too much delayed gratification. 

But not tonight. Tonight was going to be slow and easy, every step of the way. He slid his hands under Frank’s belly, urging his partner to lift his butt while Vinnie opened and tugged down the jeans. As soon as the fabric was free, Frank relaxed right back down, and Vinnie returned to the massage. Moving lower. Sliding oiled hands over the full curve of ass and kneading until the muscles tightened and Frank humped up against them. Slipping his fingers between Frank’s thighs to tease the soft pouch of balls. “You still awake?”

“Mmm, what do you think?” Frank replied, his voice a little breathless.

Vinnie was achingly erect, his cock weeping with anticipation. He knew what he wanted to think. Straddling his partner’s thighs, he slid his hands back along the narrow runner’s girdle, worming them down into Frank’s crotch. Finding him hard and rubbing the turgid erection until Frank was groaning and thrusting gently against his fondling hands.

“I think I wanna be in you,” he whispered. Muscles tightened. The cock jerked in his hand. In the quarter profile he had of Frank’s face, he saw the smile begin and drew his hands away. Vinnie spread his weight out over his lover and let his erection nestle along the crease of Frank’s ass. Frank’s skin, still oily and slick from the massage, was incredible against him, warming his front while the cool evening air still breezed against his back.

“Warm,” Frank said.

“Yeah.” Muscles clenched on his cock. “Nice.”

He saw the bit of smile again. “Yeah. Go ahead.”

He slid off Frank and tucked in beside him, grabbing the petroleum jelly off the nightstand and smearing it liberally across two fingers. Gently, he slid his fingers along the crease and rubbed against the relaxed pucker of flesh. Frank sighed; ribs lifted and fell against his own. He slipped a finger in, rubbed at the tight warmth while he listened to his lover’s gentle, even breathing. “You okay?”

“Oh, Vinnie,” Frank’s voice was whispy and thin with pleasure, “I’m perfect. Hurry up.”

“No.” He slipped a second finger inside, pressing gently, opening and relaxing him., searching carefully until he felt muscle tighten on his fingers and heard the indrawn gasp of pleasure. “Yeah,” he breathed, completely distracted with his partner’s enjoyment. “Yeah.” He kept thrusting with his fingers until Frank was humping up against them, whimpering tiny cut-off sounds that made Vinnie tremble in reaction. He loved it when Frank got like this: so relaxed he let everything else go and was just there with Vinnie a hundred percent. Vinnie never doubted, at times like this, what Frank was thinking about. It was obvious in every reaction he could wring out of the man.

“Okay. Okay.” He squeezed out more Vaseline and coated his aching erection with it. Frank stayed completely still, moving only as Vinnie guided him to: knees wider, hips up a little more…. Sliding into Frank was smooth and easy, and Vinnie’s breath caught in his chest at the overwhelming combination of sensations. Frank’s skin was hot and slick against him, Frank’s ass hotter and slicker, clutching at his cock, and beyond all that the simple, straightforward pleasure of loving someone so much it threatened to overload his senses. He settled heavily and Frank muttered unintelligibly, half-formed words Vinnie couldn’t make out and didn’t worry about. He just listened to the quiet, panted breaths and burrowed a hand under Frank’s ribs to find and pinch a nipple. Frank jerked hard against him and the half-words broke off into a long, slow groan of pleasure that stripped down Vinnie’s nerves, cutting sensation into him with the ease of a knife. He was so close, too close—Frank humped up against him and he thrust into the tight welcoming heat, setting up a strong rhythm that his partner matched with a gasp. He’d let himself get too wound up, and now he almost forgot about Frank as the pleasure ran a harried course through him and out of him, a long rolling climax that left him shaking, panting against his lover’s back.

Frank was laughing breathlessly. “If I’d known the best way to set you off like that was to do absolutely nothing….”

Vinnie laughed himself, burying his face in the soft hot crook of neck and shoulder. “Sorry,” he said. “I got a little carried away.” Muscles clenched on him and he gasped, the sensation almost too much. “Here, let me—” Frank humped his butt up and Vinnie slid his free hand into the hollow between Frank’s groin and the bedding. Grabbing the hot, hungry erection, he pinched again at the captured nipple and started up a rhythm he knew Frank loved. Listened as panting breaths turned to half-words and whimpers, and the “oh—oh my—ahh, Vinnie—” that stretched erratically into a stifled, drawn-out groan. Muscle clenched mercilessly around his cock.

He bit an exposed ear and whispered, “I love you,” as his partner’s cock jerked and spent itself in his hand.

Vinnie lay there mindlessly, listening to the muted crash of waves in the distance and his and Frank’s heavy breathing. Muscles tightened and relaxed all along his lover’s body as Frank slowly came down off the rush, like he was testing everything and making sure it still worked.

Vinnie had to move; Frank would start squirming and complaining about the wet spot any second now if he didn’t, and that would ruin the mood. Carefully he pulled out and rolled aside, dragging Frank with him and away from the mess a little. He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to do anything.

“Oh, Vinnie.” Frank sighed and pressed back against him, and a hand clutched his where it rested against Frank’s belly.

He chortled; he couldn’t help it. “Oh, Frank.”

“Am I getting too mushy on you?” Vinnie started to make a wise crack until he realized that his lover was serious.

“You kiddin’? No way. Takes a little more than I can ever imagine you doin’ to be too sentimental.” He thought about the sensual, quiet scene Frank had unconsciously presented, and emotion welled up in him. “I was thinkin’ when I saw you layin’ here how we don’t usually make enough time to take it slow.”

“Yeah? And there I was thinkin’ how early four a.m. sounded.”

“Glad I didn’t leave the decision up to you, then.”

“Yeah. Come on, get up.”

Frank rolled out of bed, and tugged while Vinnie groaned and resisted the pull. “Why?”

“Because it’s after sunset and it’s probably beautiful outside and I wanna walk on the beach with you.”

That was a surprise. A pleasant one, though—enough to make him willing to crawl out of bed. “Think we can work a little midnight skinny dip in there somewhere? Sex in the Pacific?”

Frank looked exasperated. “Get a life.”

Vinnie just laughed, and stepped around his lover on the way to the john.

Frank was gone when Vinnie woke up the next morning, and it took him a minute to remember why. The fishing trip. Frank was out happily tossing smelly pieces of little fish off the side of a boat, in hopes of attracting a smellier, bigger fish. Well, to each his own. For Vinnie, paradise on a Thursday meant a long cool shower, breakfast and coffee, a volleyball game he found at the beach, a nice swim through the surf, diving under breaking waves, and more lying around by the pool. Especially the lying around part. He stripped to his stupid Speedo and parked a lounger in full shade, depending on the sun to reach him eventually.

It was some time before he realized he was being watched, and minutes longer before he decided to roll onto his back and find out who. When he found his admirer he bit back a grin. Frank was back from fishing, still in deck shoes and old jeans, leaning against the fence that surrounded most of the pool. Vinnie stared back across the space between them, sobering when he recognized the look in his lover’s eyes. It was one Vinnie hadn’t seen in awhile: sad, and almost… hungry. It was the look Frank had worn before Vinnie had dragged him into bed the first time.

Curious and more than a little intrigued, Vinnie propped his head so he could watch Frank watching him, and traced his fingertips down his belly. Over his bathing suit. Over his sleeping cock on his way to resting his hand on his upper thigh.

Frank’s eyes widened and the man seemed to shrink in on himself, like he wanted to disappear. Then he cast a furtive, cop’s gaze around the pool. Vinnie recognized that look, too: Frank was looking for witnesses. He glanced around himself, confirming what he already knew; these guys had better things to do than waste their time on people who weren’t playing the field, and Vinnie’s “keep out” signs had pretty much gotten through. Nobody cared much about one dark-haired New Yorker who liked lying in the sun. Nobody but Frank. Vinnie looked back to his partner and watched the same knowledge settle over him. Frank’s twitchy reaction faded, he propped one foot on the fence and raised his eyebrows. Mute apology, Vinnie could read it a mile away. He twitched his hand where it rested on his thigh, threatening. Frank shook his head, flashed an indulgent smile, and turned back toward the hotel. Ten minutes later Frank reappeared in swim trunks and red tee shirt. Vinnie watched him approach, wishing the shirt was tighter. It did nice things for Frank’s skin already, but Vinnie wanted to see nipples taunting him, and Frank steadfastly avoided clothes that allowed that.

Frank dragged up a chair and propped his feet on the end of Vinnie’s lounger. “You didn’t wear yourself out, gettin’ from the room to the food to that chair?” Frank asked.

“I did have a problem findin’ the energy to actually put clothes on, yeah,” he replied with a smile.

Frank glanced once, coolly, down his body. “You call that thing ‘clothes.’ I keep forgetting.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Vinnie didn’t want to argue. “How was the fishing?”

Frank shrugged and relaxed a little deeper into the chair. “Okay. I got a mackerel and a shark, which was kinda neat. And I drank a six pack of beer between dawn and noon.”

“Breakfast of champions.”

“Hey, it’s a fishing thing. Don’t knock it.”

Vinnie reached for his empty Corona bottle, hot now from too much time in the sun. “Me, knock it?” he said, waving the bottle at Frank.

Frank subsided.

A minute later, a bar tender trotted up. “Una otra Cerveza, señor?”

“Uh…,” he looked at Frank, who was smirking at the empty he’d just waved around. “No, thanks.”

The guy smiled, removed the bottle, and trotted away. Frank stared after him and puffed out a breath that signaled an incoming complaint. Vinnie closed his eyes. “Y’know,” Frank began, “I think the breweries of the world must’ve gotten together and made a deal with hotels: whoever they are, wherever they come from, make sure the suckers can order beer in seventeen different languages. Real useful stuff if you’re stranded in the jungle somewhere.”

“Ah,” he said sagely, “another conspiracy. Well you go ahead, Frank, an’ tell me all about it.” When he was greeted with silence, he laughed at his own wit. He didn’t even have to open his eyes to see the irritated frown.

He had dozed off again. The touch of hands on him was soothing, wet, and shocking. He jerked his eyes open and tried to sit up, but Frank’s square hand pushed at his chest. “What’re you doing?” he muttered, trying to breathe evenly and calm his racing heart.

“You fell asleep again.”

The changed angle of the sun made that obvious enough. He was trying to figure out what had scared him so much when it actually registered. Frank was smearing sunscreen on every exposed inch of his skin. Which included just about all of it….

“Frank?” His voice came out a squeak. “What’re you doing?”

Blue eyes glanced furtively up from his stomach. “Putting sunscreen on you.”

He took a moment to digest that dodge, wondering why he was complaining; the soft kneading strokes felt deliciously decadent. When slick hands insinuated themselves between his thighs he just gritted his teeth and bore it.

“I’m lookin’ at these people, Vinnie,” Frank said quietly. “I mean, some of ’em are beautiful, they’re really—beautiful.” He sighed pleasantly, and Vinnie propped up on his elbows to watch him. Frank glanced up again, speculatively. “It does great things for my imagination.”

“Frank, you actually had a human, sexually-motivated thought in a public place? Is that what you’re tellin’ me?”

Frank grimaced. “Just stop.”

“I can die happily now.”

Frank’s frown slowly melted into something a whole lot more interesting. “I’d wait ’til after tonight to say that, if I were you.”

The words tore over Vinnie like a subway train. As Frank stared, obviously witnessing his response, the sly grin broadened. “In fact,” Frank added, “there isn’t a reason in the world to wait. Come on, let’s go up to the room for awhile. I got some etchings I wanna show you.”

Vinnie licked his lips, floored by the kind of overtly sexual invitation that Frank never promised outside the just-swept safety of his own bedroom. And rarely enough, even then. “Yeah?”

Frank stood up and ran his eyes like a hand the length of Vinnie’s body. “Oh, yeah.”

Vinnie jumped up and grabbed his shirt. He was in love and aroused and he didn’t give a damn about what other people worried about.

He slowed down to a more sedate walk as they approached the lobby. “What happened to you, anyway? You get a signed affidavit from every guy here that he’s a legitimate homosexual?”

Frank shook his head. “Nope. Besides, plenty of them probably aren’t. Plenty of them are probably just like me, kiddo—they took a walk on the wild side and forgot how to get back across the street.”

“Oh yeah?” He stopped in the middle of the lobby, feeling suspicious and good about it. “Then what happened? Notes from their mothers? Copies of their tax returns for the last few years? C’mon, give.”

Frank smiled at him, the warm innocent smile that always set his nerves twinging with anticipation. “I told you, Vinnie. You were sleeping, and I spent my time exercising my imagination on total strangers. Then I looked over at you and, surprise surprise, you looked identically like the guy in my wet dreams. I figured I might as well do somethin’ about it.”

“Huh.” Vinnie loved the change, and he was beginning to suspect the fishing trip. Something must’ve happened on the water that Frank wasn’t telling. “I’m still thinkin’ I oughtta take your temperature.”

Frank frowned at him, said soberly, “Well, there’s an easy way to do that, and a hard way.” Then he walked on through the lobby alone, leaving Vinnie shocked immobile in the middle of the room. Screw whatever might’ve happened; if fishing was gonna loosen Frank up that much, Vinnie would buy Frank a boat.

• • •

They spent a lot of the next day in bed, doling out bits and pieces of it to ocean swimming and quiet late night walks. Frank tried and failed to teach him the art of body surfing. They felt each other up under cover of the water.

They worked in more simple loving—in bed and out—than they usually managed in a fiscal quarter. Every part of Vinnie’s body carried a pleasant ache from too much rest and too much sex. He felt wonderful.

On Saturday morning, they went down for their last lavish breakfast in Mexico and Frank pushed his own plate through the line. Vinnie chortled as a slice of quiche was hidden under whole grain toast. Frank was relaxed over the meal; they both were, talking quietly like it was breakfast anywhere else in the world.

Because they were both so engrossed in their work and because the vacation was pretty much over, Frank started outlining the next probable undercover job and Vinnie let him do it. He’d be working with yet another mafia family with more stock in history than Dow Jones. “We’ll leave the white collar scumbags to our accountants,” Frank said. Vinnie shrugged. It would be at least a month before he went back under; he had decompression time coming. “That’s assuming these guys don’t do us all a favor and whack each other before then.”

“Keep a good thought,” he said around a mouthful.

Frank sipped at his coffee and stared thoughtfully across the table at him. “Sorry, this can wait until we get back.”

“No problem, Frank. Really.”

Frank subsided nonetheless, and waited for him while he grabbed another plate of food.

Back in their room, Vinnie threw open the curtains and the French doors to let in the tropical sun while he packed. “Y’know, Frank, I thought I’d really fucked up, bringing you here.” He looked up to find Frank stretched out on the bed, legs crossed, arms behind his head. Watching him. Pretending impatience, since Frank’s Samsonite had been neatly stashed beside the door last night. “But this was great.” Silence. “We had a good time, huh.”

“Yeah, we had a good time.” The words were measured, though: wary.

He finished rolling up a pair of jeans and stuffed them into a corner of his bag. “So I thought we oughtta come back again, maybe even regularly.”

Frank swung his legs off the edge of the bed and sat up, dropping his clasped hands between his knees. “I’ll make a deal with you, Vince. I’ll tone down the vacation paranoia if you’ll swear never to plan a couple’s trip to a homosexual venue.”

Vinnie paused holding a handful of socks from the bureau drawer. He was missing something colossal. “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but you loved this place.”

Frank frowned. “The beach, I loved. The service and the fishing, I loved. But we can get all that stuff with being surrounded by a bunch of homosexual men.”

“We couldn’t, before.”

“Yeah, but that’s because I was a little…confused. I don’t need to try and identify with a culture I don’t feel a part of—”

“Frank,” he interrupted, “I don’t wanna have this argument with you again.” He dropped the socks in next to the jeans. “We fuck each other, isn’t that gay enough for you?”

Frank held up a hand in surrender. “Sorry. I’m not being very clear, am I? That isn’t the point I was arguing at all, Vinnie. It’s just—I’m more a cop than I am a queer.” He frowned, staring down at his hands. “Does that make any sense to you?”

“No,” Vinnie said flatly, retrieving his tennis shoes from the closet.

He watched Frank’s chest lift in a long, heavy sigh. “I think you’re crediting my new attitude to the wrong thing, Vinnie. It wasn’t because I was stuck with all these men. At least, not the way you think it was. But this trip did teach me a couple of things.” Vinnie walked into the john and retrieved his toothbrush, and threw it in on top of the socks while Frank kept talking. “I’ve been bending over backwards to keep from admitting that, well, whatever we’ve got going is what it is. And I know better than to deny reality. I know better than to try and commit myself to something I’m not willing to accept the consequences for.”

“What’re you talking about, Frank? It doesn’t have to be complicated—”

Frank shook his head. “It isn’t complicated, Vince. It’s pretty straightforward. You and I get caught, we’re out. Simple as that. No more job, no more civil service pension, no more badge. That used to scare the hell out of me. Maybe it still ought to. But I was runnin’ around on that boat day before yesterday, watching these people sport fishing. They were just—fishing. Drinking beer. Talking about football and the stock market and everything but homosexuality or law enforcement, and it hit me that I have no plans at all to call it quits with you. So I might as well not waste my time worryin’ about it.”

Vinnie wasn’t sure how to take any of this; he turned toward the bureau and pulled out all the drawers to make sure they were empty, trying to find something else to occupy his hands. “So what are you sayin’?”

He heard the bed squeak, and soft footsteps. Frank said from just behind his shoulder, “I’m just saying that if I accept you, I accept the risks that go along with you. That’s just the way it’s gotta be.”

Vinnie frowned and turned around, meeting his partner’s eyes. “And what has that got to do with never comin’ back to a place like this?”

Frank glanced around and ducked his head, obviously embarrassed. “This place isn’t for people like you and me, Vinnie. We can get four star service for a whole lot less money someplace else. A whole lot closer to home, too. Next time, just take me to New Orleans; I’ve never worked in New Orleans.”

“And when we’re in New Orleans, you’re gonna act like a normal human being who’s happy to see me?”

Frank chewed on his lip for a second, frowning with his whole face. “Yeah,” he finally said. “That’s what I figured out, see? I can waste my time on you instead of on paranoia, since bein’ paranoid was never enough to keep me away from you, anyway.”

Well. Vinnie looked around at the room, letting this new information settle in. Pleasantly surprised that he believed it; something had snapped in Frank, and something was changing for the better right before his very eyes. “You know, Frank, if that’s the truth then this is the best five thousand bucks I ever spent.”

Blue eyes saucered wide. Familiar, self-righteous fury reddened his lover’s face, and Vinnie kicked himself mentally. “You spent five thousand dollars?” Frank seethed. “For four days? I could put my kid through a year of college for that!”

Vinnie cringed and ducked around his partner to get at his suitcase. Sometimes, honesty just didn’t pay.


End file.
